What is love addiction and love avoidance and what does it have to do with love anyway? For women who struggle with self-defeating relationship patterns, things can get very muddy in this area. Fortunately for women whose lives have become unmanageable, Willow House at The Meadows offers an intimate inpatient treatment experience to help them regain control.

Pia Mellody defines love addiction as: “A condition in which individuals…are attracted to somebody who will neglect the relationship.” This creates a co-dependent love dance that is unhealthy, frustrating and debilitating to the love addict, yet they remain entrenched in a fantasy of what was or what might be.

For decades, researchers have struggled to define the unconscious processes of irrational love paramount in myths and fairy tales. Lovers in these stories are portrayed as love struck, driven to tantrums or immature behavior, wholly bewitched by the spell of the beloved. The psychologically tormented, unstable duo is incapable of secure, mature love, rendering them unable to function until they are driven to insanity and, at times, even to death.

Women who seek treatment related to their out of control romantic and/or sexual behaviors are sometimes unsure about how to label their issue. They ask, “Am I a love addict, a relationship addict, or a sex addict?” Generally, their confusion stems from the fact that love, relationship, and sex addictions manifest in similar and sometimes interrelated ways, making it difficult to distinguish one from another. That said, there are some subtle differences that can usually be identified.